PLease give me your opinion on this. I use AMEX cash-back as a primary card. Chase Perfectcard is used for all gas, plus anywhere AMEX is not accepted. I also have a Bank One Free Cash Rewards Visa that I keep in a drawer and use two or three times a year, mainly for major purchases that I don't want to put on the other two cards. It pays a straight 1% for every $2500 in charges. Rather than doing that, I could alternate six months using the Chase Mastercard as an AMEX backup and six months using the Bank One Visa as an AMEX backup. The one that I am not using would "rest" in the sock drawer. Which type of usage (1st or 2nd paragraph) for the three cards would look better on the credit report? Or does it matter? Any opinions?
Bank One and Chase, I am assuming either have almost the same APR or you basically don't carry a balance so the interest rate doesn't really matter. Assuming that is the case, are either of them reporting the actual credit limit, or do they do the "Your high balance is reported as your credit limit" trick. If they both are reporting their credit limits, then I would suggest using the primary "second" card as the one which offers the best rewards program but make sure to dust off the "sock drawer" card every 6 months on a minimum and I would say use it for about a month's billing cycle to get several charges up on it, then drawer it again. You may want to PFB for credit limit increases if you haven't had one in a year or so on the two, that helps your FICO (supposedly UYGF) The "looks" on the credit report is basically just the outstanding balances on all the cards compaired to the high limits (percent utilization) this should be a low utilization for the best scores. Then also making sure that there are no derogs. Oh yea, and it's alleged that the age of the cards helps too. I would just say make sure to not do anything that might get one of the two to decide to cancel your card leaving you with just the one backup card. If one of your cards is not reporting the credit limit but instead giving your highest balance, make a month or two of all purchases including anything big, keep the cash in your checking for paying it all off, and get the balance to come up near your credit limit (or BT the balances off any other cards) then pay it off, then the reported credit limit will be the amount you charged it up too. ChrisB
